YouTube and Al Jazeera English create video archive of Iraq elections

Al Jazeera English’s latest project in partnership with YouTube’s CitizenTube channel really is a great showcase for the power of video as a medium and how aggregated, short-form video can be a valuable addition to coverage of a news event.

AJE and CitizenTube have been collecting videos from Iraqi citizens before, during and after Sunday’s nationwide parliamentary election in the country:

Each of these videos features the perspective of a regular Iraqi, whose viewpoints and experiences are rarely shared in the news reports coming out of the country. Through video, we can listen to their voices, see their faces, and gain a better understanding of what it was like inside Iraq on this important day.

The videos are featured on CitizenTube’s YouTube channel and as part of Al Jazeera English’s interactive site on the Iraq elections under the header ‘Iraqi voices’. Some will also be featured on AJE’s TV broadcasts.

While internet in the home is by no means ubiquitous in Iraq, as this OpenNet Initiative report on the country suggests, many Iraqis took to uploading YouTube videos during the last conflict. The Iraqi government also launched its own channel on the site last year.

Similar posts:

• NYTimes.com launches Baghdad bureau blog
• YouTube and Google News come together for publishers
• ITN to provide archive video footage for Al Jazeera
• Iraq Inquiry: BBC training of Iraqi journalists was necessary for fledgling democracy
• CNN’s news priorities – compared to Al Jazeera’s